Early Social Cognition Understanding Others in the First Months of Life

In recent years, much stimulating research has emerged on children's theories of mind, construed as the understanding of others' intentions, beliefs, and desires. In this context, there is a renewed interest in the developmental origins of social cognition. This book is an expression of this new interest, assembling current conceptualizations and research on the precursors of joint engagement, language, and explicit theories of mind. The focus is on what announces such remarkable development.

The book is divided into four parts. Part I deals with the nature and development of social cognition in infancy. Each contribution provides a different view of the important features of social cognition in the first months of life. Part II presents recent empirical findings on the developing ability by young infants to detect whether caretakers and social partners are attentive and responsive to their own behavior in social exchanges. Part III focuses on the early development of infants' ability to monitor others in their action, their gazing, their animacy, and their emotion. Part IV offers a commentary on the contributions as a whole, discussing the basic theoretical assumptions guiding current research on early social cognition. The author identifies the conceptual strengths and weaknesses of the work presented and suggests interesting avenues for future research.

Contents: Preface. Part I: Origins of Social Cognition.P. Rochat, T. Striano, Social-Cognitive Development in the First Year. E.M. Blass, The Ontogeny of Human Infant Face Recognition: Orogustatory, Visual, and Social Influences. D.N. Stern, Vitality Contours: The Temporal Contour of Feelings as a Basic Unit for Constructing the Infant's Social Experience. M. Lewis, Social Cognition and the Self. Part II: Early Sensitivity to Social Contingencies.G. Gergely, J.S. Watson, Early Socio-Emotional Development: Contingency Perception and the Social-Biofeedback Model. A.E. Bigelow, Infants' Sensitivity to Imperfect Contingency in Social Interaction. D. Muir, S. Hains, Young Infants' Perception of Adult Intentionality: Adult Contingency and Eye Direction. J. Nadel, H. Tremblay-Leveau, Early Perception of Social Contingencies and Interpersonal Intentionality: Dyadic and Triadic Paradigms. Part III: Early Monitoring of Others.D.A. Baldwin, J.A. Baird, Action Analysis: A Gateway to Intentional Inference. C. Moore, Gaze Following and the Control of Attention. D. Poulin-Dubois, Infants' Distinction Between Animate and Inanimate Objects: The Origins of Naive Psychology. L.B. Adamson, C.L. Russell, Emotion Regulation and the Emergence of Joint Attention. Part IV: Commentary.M. Tomasello, Social Cognition Before the Revolution.